Apple eNews: September 20, 2001

“From the moment we are born, we are risk takers at different levels,” says Peter Degerfeldt, co-producer, co-editor, and co-camera operator of the IMAX movie “Courage.”

Think you’re a risk taker? Odds are you’re probably not on the same level as the sky divers Degerfeldt filmed for “Courage.” One of them even dove using a parachute created to match the drawings in Leonardo Da Vinci’s 15th-century journal.

Degerfeldt himself took no risks with the equipment he chose for his film. To be sure everything would go according to plan, he pressed 13 Macintosh computers into service, including several PowerBook computers which he used to edit the digital video onsite with Final Cut Pro.

“Being able to edit onsite is a dream,” Degerfeldt says. “We have better control of the total picture.”

Used to be, you’d race over to Starbucks or Le Boulanger in the morning just to pick up your favorite morning brew. But—talk about accommodating—now you can pick up your email right along with your double, tall, lo-fat, latte, no foam.

That’s because more and more places we frequent—terminals, hotels, eateries, and coffee shops—offer wireless access to the Internet via Wi-Fi, the wireless standard on which AirPort is based.

Exactly how easy is it to connect on the go? We cut the Internet umbilical cord from one of our intrepid reporters and sent her out to fend for herself in the wireless wilds of northern California. No babe on the web, she connected all around the town, even filing her story remotely.

If you’ve received Apple eNews for any length of time or visited the Apple website over the last several months, you’ve no doubt read all about the Titanium PowerBook G4.

That it’s just 1” thin. That it weighs a mere 5.3 pounds. That it features a display that’s tantalizingly wide and stunningly crisp. Or that regardless of your creative needs—whether you want to edit video in the Himalayas, mix music in the Bahamas, or watch your favorite DVD movies wherever you go—the PowerBook G4 is the way to go.

So we hope you’ll be pleased to hear that the PowerBook G4 is now priced to go, too.

Some instructors make learning fun. Like Galen Fott, for example. Not only does he seem to completely enjoy what he’s doing, he’s astute enough to organize his tutorials into bite-size pieces. So even though his subject matter—Photoshop 6—can be challenging to some of us, Fott makes learning about it altogether appetizing.

In fact, you can choose from over 20 QuickTime videos covering a wide array of Photoshop topics. Want to know how to get the red eye out of photographs? How to get rid of ugly JPEG artifacts? How the Magic Wand differs from the Color Range selection tool and when to use which tool? If you have a Photoshop topic you’d like to explore, Fott probably covers it in one of his enjoyable video tutorials.

Everyone says that time is money, but few know that as well as Trevor Doerksen. Using a Power Mac G4 computer, Final Cut Pro, and QuickTime, Doerksen and his team created a series of educational videos for the University of Toronto. Not only did Doerksen complete his project 30 percent faster than with a nondigital solution, he cut costs by 70 percent in the bargain.

How did Doerksen save time? He burned digital footage to CDs, then sent them to colleagues who used QuickTime Pro to make annotations. But he saved the most time by using Final Cut Pro, editing 76 scenes in just five hours.

“The program made me feel like it was working so fast, and kind of ‘smartly,’” he says. Like to hear more of Doerksen’s time- and money-saving tips?

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Look for your next issue on October 4.

Like many Macintosh owners who surf the unpredictable waters of the Internet, you may be worried about accidentally downloading a virus or inadvertently allowing others to access the personal data on your computer.

Worry no longer. Symantec recently announced that Norton AntiVirus and Norton Personal Firewall are now built for Mac OS X. With Norton AntiVirus installed, you can regularly and easily check your Mac for infected files (including email attachments), and its LiveUpdate technology will keep you armed against the latest threats.

Norton Personal Firewall, meanwhile, maintains a constant vigil against unwanted intruders, whether you connect to the Internet constantly with broadband service or just occasionally with a dial-up ISP.

Sooner or later, you’re going to want to capture a screen shot, a digital picture of what you see onscreen.

With the Mac, it’s easy. You can capture a screen shot of the entire screen, a particular window, or a particular section of the screen. With the Mac OS X screen shot utility — Grab — you can even take advantage of a 10-second timer, which is useful for capturing such items as a pop-up menu.

Although simple to do, it’s also easy to forget exactly how to take a screen shot. That’s why we’ve provided articles in our Knowledge Base that remind you how to do so in Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X.

“Thin and cleanly designed, the PowerBook G4 whispers the promising look of the future without having to wait for it.” So maintains Mobile Computing Online, which named the PowerBook G4 one of the “Mobile Innovators of 2001” and “easily the coolest notebook anywhere.”

Early this month, teachers and students in the Quaker Valley School District went “all digital, all the time,” writes Eleanor Chute in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The plan includes PowerBook G4 computers for the teachers, iBook computers for the students, a wireless network shared by all four school buildings, and free access to that network from home for students and parents.

We asked the National Software Testing Labs, a leading independent information technology testing organization, to compare iDVD (Apple’s solution for authoring digital content) with DVD IT! LE (Compaq’s solution). Their conclusion? The “Apple solution proved to significantly outperform the Compaq solution. It was 83% faster and was easier to use.” In fact, the report concludes: “It is hard to imagine a DVD authoring program that can be any easier.”

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Event dates are subject to change. Some products, programs, or promotions are not available outside the U.S. Visit your local Apple site or call your local authorized Apple reseller for more information. Prices are estimated retail prices and are listed in U.S. dollars. Product specifications are subject to change.